17Jun 2014 by CJ

Home is not a place, but a series of moment you take with you

Love & Relationships
Almost twelve years ago to the day, my wife and I moved into our first house - a traditional, side-hall colonial from the mid 1920’s. While beginning your career or solidifying your relationship with the exchange of vows certainly qualifies as being a full-fledged adult, I feel that buying your first home is tops on the list. Beyond the financial burden, it’s a huge personal responsibility that really doesn’t come with a foolproof handbook, no matter what the experts might say. You learn as you go – from the mistakes and the successes – allowing you the esteemed title of “homeowner” that so many of us take pride in. I remember my wife and I practically LIVED on Chips Ahoy sandwich cookies with Oreo cream inside for the first few…
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11Jun 2014 by CJ

Do you put relationships on your to-do-lists?

Life & Living, Love & Relationships
Take a look at your life and ask yourself, what’s on my to-do-list? Our lives are often filled to capacity with an excess of errands, chores and commitments – pulling us in different directions and robbing us of the more memorable moments life has to offer. We prioritize our lives based upon what we believe to be important and inadvertently forget about the people we always assume will be around when our to-do-lists are finally complete. It’s funny how our lists seem to focus so much on taking care of responsibilities, yet pay little attention to taking care of the people who provide our lives with infinite meaning. Imagine turning off all the distractions of life to interact with that special someone who’s been sitting right next to, yet somehow…
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10Jun 2014 by CJ

Believing our struggles are worse than everyone else’s

Life & Living, Love & Relationships, Youth
Morning commutes are often long and tedious – a direct result of overpopulation and continual construction projects being undertaken on our heavily traveled roadways. One Friday morning I was running incredibly late, and as you might expect in this situation, highway traffic was at a standstill. My patience was already wearing incredibly thin and it wasn’t even nine o’clock in the morning! To help maintain some sanity, I decided to exit the highway and navigate through back roads and side streets in the hopes of avoiding any more congestion. Within minutes, I was relieved to again see the needle on my speedometer approaching 35 miles per hour. But it didn’t take long for my morning commute to again come to a screeching halt. This time I found myself stuck behind…
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09Jun 2014 by CJ

Giving love and attention to your family is an invaluable gift

Love & Relationships
The following piece was published some four years ago now, but of late I find myself frequently taking a trip down memory lane and thought I’d share it with all of your again. Enjoy! Many of us assign sentimental value to inanimate objects as a pleasant way of remembering the people and places of our past. They evoke more joyous times – which our hearts and minds often begrudgingly forget while living life and dealing with its realities. And while I myself have such souvenirs, to me nothing is as precious as a photograph – a moment in time forever immortalized for our viewing pleasure. I enjoy looking at old pictures - especially black and white images of family members I’ve never had the opportunity to know beyond stories passed…
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